Another early start today! After our last buffet breakky at Hotel Loza, we loaded the coach and left Novalja after a nice 3 nights there! The weather looked threatening as menacingly dark clouds rolled in overhead. We arrived at the ferry dock around 8am, a good 30mins before our 8:30am ferry. We spent the half hour walking around the docks and taking note of the contrasts between the harsh barren landscape before us and the signboards advertising idyllic resorts on the other side of the island! Also noted the presence of what looked like a modern military bunker/fortification on the hill overlooking the dock! Some of the boys had bought BB guns and were shooting each other like schoolboys playing brandings! This stopped when a police car pulled up along side the coach to wait for the ferry to the mainland!
The sea was choppy as we crossed over but the ferry was surprisingly stable. Once on the mainland it was time to nap as Matty drove us towards Slovenia! Di’s passport was again taken off the coach to be checked at the Croatian/Slovenian border but it was returned with no dramas. We rolled on towards the Slovenian capital Ljubljana after a brief service stop. Di and I ate our salami and cheese rolls whilst watching Snatch on the coach’s dvd/tv - awesome movie man!!!
We drove into the outskirts of Ljubljana and our hotel for the night around 2:30pm. Our hotel was actually situated on a camping/caravan/cabin site. This warranted some apprehension at first but the hotel rooms themselves turned out to be really nice! They were 3 star rooms with clean bathroom, tv, mini bar fridge, and heaters!
After an hour’s rest (during which we did some hand washing), we all got back on the coach and Matty drove us into the Slovenian capital’s center for our walking tour of the town. I was curious to check out the town that our missionaries the Box family recently lived in! It took almost 30mins to reach Congress square due to peak hour traffic. Once there Jaz led us off the bus and took us on a brief tour of some of the city’s landmarks, ending in the old town square. We saw some monuments, some churches including a beautiful Franciscan one, and the city’s renowned Triple Bridge (basically one bridge built initially, then two smaller side bridges built on either side of the original).
There was some light drizzle on and off and it was rather chilly at 9 degrees or so as we set off by ourselves to explore the city before dinner at 6:30pm. We decided to visit Ljubljana castle, perched high atop a mountain. To get up there we found the ticket booth to a funicular railway to take us up. It cost a reasonable 5 euros for a return ticket on the railway and entrance into the castle and its tower and virtual museum. Soon a couple more ppl from our tour group joined us to visit the castle.
We all went up on the railway which had glass walls allowing for nice views of the city as we ascended. At the top we disembarked and headed straight for the castle’s tower. We climbed up a spiral staircase and emerged at the open rooftop with sweeping 360 views of Ljubljana and its surrounds! It was drizzling though so we quickly took a few photos and went back down. We hung around for the 5pm virtual museum presentation which was a 23 min 3D video about the castle and a brief summary of Ljubljana’s history. The 3D effects weren’t that great and quite frankly I was a bit zonked out during some of the dry factual bits. Anyhow, some parts were interesting such as how Slovenia became an independent state after a 10 day war with its original rulers Yugoslavia.
After the presentation we quickly checked out the castle wall, an exhibition, and the shop before heading back down on the funicular railway. We checked out the dragon bridge, so called because of the dragon statues perched on 4 posts at either end of the bridge. It was erected in 1901 to mark the 40th anniversary of the accession of the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Josef when Slovenia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
We walked along the riverside and passed on some tempting gelato to save space for dinner! We met the others at 6pm at Sokol, a traditional Slovenian restaurant recommended by Jaz. Pretty much everyone was there! Most ppl ordered the game goulash but we tried the mushroom soup and game plate. The mushroom soup was nice and hearty and came in a bread bowl. The game mix took a while to come and when it did it wasn’t quite what we had imagined! There were medallions of deer, stag, and wild boar, each with a different type of sauce. They were accompanied by a dumpling type thing and polenta. We liked the stag and wild boar but the deer had a bit of a strong taste and the slight aftertaste of liver. I guess we took a gamble but at least we tried the local food!
After dinner we headed off to the supermarket to stock up on snacks and even found instant noodles in bowls! Got some pastries for lunch tomorrow too! Met the group back at Congress square at 8:30pm and Matty drove us back to our hotel! So that was our visit of Ljubljana! It was a nice mix of modern and historic elements and it’d actually be a nice place to live I reckon! It’s on to Austria tomorrow!
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